- Gunjan Kedia, newly appointed CEO of U.S. Bank, emphasized urgency, discipline, and growth in her first earnings call, aiming to restore investor confidence amid a challenging financial climate and lackluster stock performance. Despite surpassing Q1 expectations, Kedia acknowledged the need for swift action, outlining priorities like cost control, organic growth, and transforming the company's payments business to drive long-term value.
Gunjan Kedia is taking over U.S. Bank at a tough time for the finance industry, but the pillars of her leadership were made clear in her first earnings call as CEO this week: Urgency, discipline, and growth.
Kedia takes on the top job at U.S. Bank having served as president since 2024 and before that, vice chair of wealth, corporate, commercial and institutional banking.
As markets continue to experience volatility on a global scale as a result of increasing tensions between major economic powers, Kedia sought to restore confidence in U.S. Bank with a solid outlook for its future.
U.S. Bank beat market expectations with its Q1 results, posting revenues of $6.96 billion, above the forecast of $6.91 billion, and EPS of $1.30, comfortably exceeding the forecast of 99 cents. Yet the beat hasn't been enough to impress Wall Street, which fell 2% the day after its earnings call.
Kedia, who has been with U.S. Bank since 2016, made it clear to shareholders she wasn't satisfied with a stock price of approximately $38 which is down 21% for the year to date.
"I’m not happy with the stock performance," Kedia told investors on the earnings call this week. "We feel the urgency and we hear the message.
"The priorities that I have laid out do reflect my observations and what we need to do differently. So the expense discipline, which was very core to the U.S. Bank story needs to come back, and you’ve seen us make very strong progress there."
Kedia pointed to the fact that the bank has delivered six consecutive quarters of expense discipline on an adjusted basis, which she said provided a solid funding mechanism for organic growth.
The focus on costs comes after questions of over leverage at U.S. Bank, which completed the purchase of Tokyo-based MUFG in December 2022—the sale coming in at $5 billion, plus 44 million U.S. Bancorp shares (which had an average price of $44 over the past five years).
In the company's 2025 proxy statement Andrew Cecere, who held the CEO title prior to Kedia, highlighted the investment will now begin to pay off. The story will be the same, he added, for the billions the bank had spent on improving technologies and digital capabilities, as well as launching new services such as Business Access advisors and payments provider U.S. Bank Smartly.
Urgency and growth
Kedia clearly wants to hit the ground running, and with the business's stock price tipping in the wrong direction knows she needs to score some wins fast.
"We are very fortunate to have a deep management bench, and I’m confident we will execute with urgency on our priorities," she said in opening remarks, adding in her closing statements that she will be pushing the company's culture towards faster results.
"We have an exceptional franchise and we’re very confident that the results will be better going forward," she added.
And the outlook for the future was clear, U.S. Bank wants growth. That includes revenue targets of an uptick between 3% and 5%, loan and fee growth, and spending on growth-oriented investments—all building to the goal of organic expansion.
"Our consistent and deep culture of risk management will continue to be a competitive advantage," Kedia said.
"The macroeconomic backdrop has shifted since our Investor Day in September, and I acknowledge that there is still considerable uncertainty to the outlook," she added. "However, a wide range of plausible forward looking macroeconomic scenarios still support our targets. I have three immediate strategic priorities to achieve our goals to tightly manage our expenses, drive organic growth across our business and transform our payments business.
"It is important to emphasize that while we are focused on organic growth, we remain deeply committed to high returns and a disciplined risk management culture."
